Friday, April 04, 2014

Sailor Spotlight: Thomas Etheridge

This week we'll be helping you get to know the new leaders of the Michigan Sailing Team a little more, starting with one of our new co-captains! 

Tom is from Norfolk, Virginia, and learned to sail at the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club at the tender age of eight. He was the captain of his sailing team in high school, and coached junior sailors during the summer at NYCC. Tom joined the Michigan Sailing Team his freshman year and quickly became one of our most competitive sailors.

In addition to being the face of the University of Michigan Sailing Team Apparel Campaign, he was voted co-captain this past fall, and says he’s looking forward to having a critical role in the success of the team, from scheduling regattas and practices to pushing towards our fundraising goal of $100,000. Tom has also credited the team with helping him develop time management skills. “I have to balance team meetings, practices, and regattas with my academic responsibilities as a Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering student. So far so good mom and dad!” Although he says that if he sails and fails, worst case scenario he "becomes a professional sailor with a modeling career on the side”.

Tom says his best collegiate sailing experience was 2012 MCSA Match Race Qualifiers. “It was my first time crewing during match racing and we ended up undefeated and earned a berth at nationals in Texas.” Tom looks forward to more experiences like this as he works to help raise the overall competition level of the team, as well as his own.